Bonnar pleased with bravery of approach

By Shane Brophy

“A lot done but so much more to do,” has become a catchy by-line for anyone at the start of a process, and that is how it was for Colm Bonnar after seeing his side get off to a winning start in the National League against Laois on Saturday night.

Off the back of a loss to Kerry in the Munster League, admittedly with a very much second string, it create an extra element of pressure in his potential banana skin of a game against a Laois side that would have sensed an upset victory, particularly in the miserable conditions of driving ran and strong winds throughout.

So in that case, a 0-21 to 1-14 victory was a decent nights work.

“We just wanted to see a bit of energy about this team, to commit and become a tight group and connect them up the best we could, and today was a good learning curve because we knew coming to Portlaoise it would be a hell of a game, especially in the conditions that we there,” he added.

“We took a brave decision to play against the breeze in the first half and set ourselves up, and I thought our structure was very good and our half time lead of 0-11 to 0-7 was good. They hit a number of wides for sure, but we were confident coming out in the second half, but we didn’t really push on as we would have lived.

“I’d say we left four goals behind is so all in all 21 points on a night like tonight and happy to come away with the two points.”

Right from the off, you could see Tipperary trying a different approach, even though they had no choice into the strong wind, working the ball through the lines with lots of short handpassing and while it wasn’t perfect, Bonnar was pleased with how they stuck to the gameplan.

“Some of the moves we had were exceptional,” he said.

“Some of the moves that came out of the back line and into the forward line, we took one or two hairy chances where it might not have been the right option. But we don’t concentrate on mistakes, we complement the bravery of the lads to make those decisions. The easy thing is to get a ball and lash it down the field, so it takes a brave decision not to do that, but we have to become more clinical.”

He added: “We took some very good combination scores out there. It was very hard to play in those conditions and the referee was trying to knock down on this handpass rule which takes a brave man to make those passes but it is what we are trying to do.”

With the retirements of Brendan & Padraic Maher since the end of last season, Tipperary need an injection of young blood and in Craig Morgan and Mark Kehoe particularly, they impressed on the night, but Bonner was pleased by the contribution of all twenty players get got game time.

“There is a young enough group of players there and more chomping at the bit as well to come in,” he added.

“Going on today’s game, Craig showed what he is doing in training and played very well.

“James Quigley played very well, and we were confident they would continue that development.

“It is only the first game, we are not going to get carried away, we know Kilkenny are coming to Thurles next Sunday and what a game that is going to be, but this is why we are in it, to play these games and to push these lads on as best as we can and try and develop their career as a Tipperary hurler.”

Bonnar was disappointed that Tipperary didn’t press on with the extra man following the sending off of Paddy Purcell, with Laois winning the remainder of the game by two points.

“You have to look at the conditions, they were deteriorating, and it was getting that bit harder in terms of the touch and lift,” he said.

“We came out in the second half and wanted to make a statement and hit four unanswered points and were moving well. The sending off sometimes doesn’t help, and at that stage it looked like we had too many bodies in the back line and no one was taking ownership of it so we need to learn from that as it shouldn’t happen that when we are hurling well against fourteen men that we start having a bit more bother.”

He added: “Obviously people will see we got the two points, and that is great for us, but there is so much more in us that we can give on the field, and we want to see more of it from them.”